Essay: Analysis of Malcolm X’s speech

Grass Roots Leadership Conference in Detroit, African-American Muslim leader and human rights activist Malcolm X delivers his speech, “Message to the Grassroots,” in which he outlines a revolution, and compares and contrasts a Black revolution with a Negro revolution. His purpose, while using a motivational and persuasive tone, is to persuade his black audience to unify globally against those who benefit from white supremacy.
In his speech, Malcolm X begins by pointing out that America as well as Black Americans have a very serious problem, and then describes what needs to be done to resolve the problem, such as conducting a meeting where the White man is excluded and commencing a violent and bloody revolution. He continues his speech by defining a revolution and differentiating a “Black Revolution” from a “Negro Revolution,” narrating the concept of the house Negro and the field Negro, and finally, explaining how the White man uses Negro leaders against the Black revolution.
Throughout his speech, Malcolm X references many instances that supports his appeal to ethos. Aristotle defines ethos as the personal character of the speaker, saying “We believe good men more fully and readily than others . . .” Malcolm X begins to build his credibility by revealing to his audience that he and all of the speakers involved in the Grassroots conference have reached an agreement concerning themselves and the audience, “We all agree tonight, all of the speakers have agreed, that America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem. America’s problem is us. We’re her problem. The only reason she has a problem is she doesn’t want us here.” Malcolm X then strengthens his credibility regarding himself and his black audience both being America’s problem with statement such as, “You catch hell because you’re a black man. You catch hell, all of us catch hell, for the same reason,” “So we are all black people,” and “We have a common enemy.” Malcolm X makes these statements to express to his audience that even though they have their differences, they are all oppressed for the same reason.
In addition to his appeals to ethos, Malcolm X shifts toward his appeals to logos, which Aristotle describes as the proof provided by the words of the speech itself, expressing how persuasion “is effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.”  Malcolm X utilizes logic to persuade his black audience of the possibility of unification against the White man without the use of violence. He supports this method of effecting persuasion by discussing the Bandung meeting of 1955. It was in this meeting where twenty-nine representatives from Asian and African nations came together to discuss peace and decolonization, while keeping in mind the ultimate goals of this conference which included non-aggression and equality, protection of human rights, the end of racial discrimination, and the importance of peaceful coexistence. Malcolm X notes how the Bandung conference serves as a proficient model and a solution to the problem he and his audience are currently facing, “And once you study what happened at the Bandung conference, and the results of the Bandung conference, it actually serves as a model for the same procedure you and I can use to get our problems solved.” He uses his knowledge of the Bandung conference as a way persuade his audience to unite without all the heavy artillery that the White man has.
In accordance with his ethos and logos appeals, Malcolm X flatters his audience by appealing to pathos, which Aristotle outlines as putting the audience in a certain frame of mind, where persuasion “may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions.” Malcolm X employs pathos to invoke the desire to commence a revolution filled with violence and bloodshed.  He differentiates a “Black” revolution with a “Negro” revolution, arguing how a “Negro” revolution is based on “loving your enemy” while a true revolution is based on land. The first part of his speech serves multiple emotionally-laden phrases that evoke feelings of disgruntlement such as, “you catch hell” “common enemy” and “America’s problem is us . . . she doesn’t want us here.” These phrases evoke images of the challenges of living in a place where you are not welcome, your skin color is the basis for all of your suffering and oppression, as well as the many negative emotions that a nonwhite person experiences while catching hell from the White man. His goal is to arouse his nonwhite audience to the point where they will come together to fight the common injustice they all faced. Another emotion that Malcolm X induces through his phrases is anger. Aristotle defines the emotion of anger as “an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one’s friends,” and mentions how “it must always be felt towards some particular individual.” He employs he phrase such as, “the field Negro was beaten.” Here, his aim is to remind his audience of all the suffering they have endured. He expressed his discontent with the march on Washington in order to emphasize how the march used to be “angry,” narrating that once the white man infiltrated it, the march “lost its militancy, and that those who participated used to be “angry, hot, and uncompromising.” His word choice also conveys sentiments of weakness: “they controlled you; they contained you,” “house n****r,” and “gut-eater.” “keep you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent,” “suffer peacefully,” “the white man takes advantage of you,” and “he’s a wolf and you’re sheep.”  These phrases evoke rudiments of weakness concerning the realization that the white man uses nonwhite people to control other nonwhites.
He analyzed the march on Washington, where the white man took over the entire movement, and compared it to coffee, hereby speaking of another rudiment of weakness: “It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak . . . It used to be strong, it becomes weak.” While describing the march on Washington, he also likened it to a circus: “Nothing but a circus, with clowns and all.” Malcolm X adopted a somber tone while comparing a serious event to one that is usually fun and humorous.
While making appeals towards Aristotle’s ethos, logos, and pathos appeals, much of his speech contains elements of what Kenneth Burke calls “identification and division.” Burke articulates that, “A is not identical to his colleague, B. But insofar as their interests are joined, A is identified with B . . .” Malcolm X identifies with his audience with claims such as, “. . .all of us catch hell, for the same reason,” “. . . we are all black people,” and “We have a common enemy.” Through these claims, he aims to identify with his audience by assuring them that he shares with them, a common oppressor, and this common oppressor discriminates against them because of their skin color. Burke continues with, “identification is . . . to confront the implications of division. . . Identification is affirmed with earnest precisely because there is division. Identification is compensatory to division. If men were not apart from one another, there would be no need for the rhetorician to declare their unity.” Malcolm X indicates several instances of division amongst the black race, including “a Black revolution and a Negro revolution,” “a house Negro and a field Negro,” and makes the claim that the “White man uses Negro leaders to control the Black race.” Malcolm X points out these examples, and compensates for them by helping them to see that they are all suffering because of their common discriminator.
In the beginning of his speech, Malcolm X claims that nonwhites can come together peacefully without all the heavy artillery possessed by the white man, which is in stark contrast to the second part of his speech where he makes the claim that a violent, bloody, weapon-filled revolution is necessary for freedom and independence. Such a shift can be attributed to his time as a member of the Nation of Islam. He became a minister and national spokesman for the organization, and held firm the beliefs of Islam. It was during this time where he was betrayed by the man whom he considered a mentor and leader, which led him to question the fraudulence of the organization in its entirety.
Malcolm X’s speech sought to inform his black audience about the shared enemy amongst them. This was the foundation on which he hoped to unify them to achieve true freedom and independence from their common oppressor. However, unifying the Black race proved to be quite difficult due in part to the division within the Black race in terms of the “house Negro” and the “field Negro,” where the white man used the house Negro to control the field Negro